Conclusions - Transition Pathways towards Sustainability in Agriculture: Case Studies from Europe - page 208

Lošťák et al . (this volume) discusses retro-innovation : the reformulation of traditional
methods such as drying fruit and producing food, which were reinvented and modernized
to appeal to consumers of local food. High nature value farming (HNVF) (Peneva et al. ,
this volume) similarly revived traditional land management practices in remote areas;
alternative agri-food networks (AAFN) (Darrot et al ., this volume) were also, in part, a
return to the shorter marketing chains of the past. These retro-innovations are different
from the rediscovery of old technologies identified as 'market niches' by Markhard and
Truffer (2008) in that the associated niches are primarily oriented towards new ways of
working (such as networks and collaboration), rather than marketing the rediscovered
technology per se . This combination of historic technologies and practices, with new
markets and networks, is an important source of innovation in the agricultural sector.
Enabling technologies : technologies not central to the niche itself but essential to its
establishment and proliferation, were also clearly important in the assessed cases.
Information technology (IT), in particular, was important for connecting urban consumers
with rural producers in the establishment of AAFN (Darrot et al. , this volume), and for
enabling home working and expansion of commuter catchments in the development of
lifestyle farming (Pinto-Correia et al. a, this volume). Use of cutting edge software
facilitated the coordination of machinery and equipment sharing across wide geographic
regions in the mainstreaming of machinery rings but the lack of these programmes was
identified as a limiting factor to collaboration between farmers in the Regionalwert AG
case (Schiller et al. , this volume). The research, thus, represents a first step in identifying
the role of these enabling technologies within the MLP. In the agricultural sector, where
production is lodged in physical space, IT access may be particularly important for remote
rural regions where access has historically lagged behind that in urban and peri-urban
areas.
The role of markets
The role of markets in transition processes has received considerably less attention than
technology within the MLP construct, where markets are generally considered part of the
incumbent regime. Elzen et al. (2012), in their conceptualization of anchoring, recognize
the importance of markets but include them as a subset of institutional anchoring
('economic institutional anchoring'), rather than granting them a separate category in their
own right. Based on the analysis in this topic, we suggest that markets are more embedded
in the MLP conceptualization than is currently recognized.
In the cases studied here, the role of markets was clearly important to the long-term
success of many of the initiatives. For example, the establishment of viable markets was
essential to the recruitment of mainstream agri-food chain actors into AAFN (Darrot et
al. , this volume). Local certification schemes, similarly, depended on the economic
viability of selling through these labels, in order to retain farming participants (Lošťák et
al. , this volume). Market supports for renewable energy made it economically viable for
both farm and corporate investors (Sutherland et al. b, this volume). In addition, open land
markets and the buying power of incomers have been essential for the spread of lifestyle
land management (Pinto-Correia et al. a, this volume). However, lack of markets was a
particular problem associated with initiatives supporting public goods, such as HNVF
(Peneva et al. , this volume) and natural resource management (Vlahos and Schiller, this